Are you co-teaching with your related service providers? I know what you're thinking, "why, yes I work with my related service providers!" But I am talking about actually co-teaching a 30 minute lesson together, daily. A time that is consistent, scheduled, and where you and your classroom team are working together to get the lesson concepts across. Everyone knows that related service providers are essential keys to student's success. The knowledge and expertise they provide to not only the students but to us, as educators, is vital to the team. Which is why I absolutely love our 30 minute block of co-teaching that is built into our daily schedule. The reasons are endless, but here are my top 3 reasons why you should schedule a co-teaching block with your therapists and related service providers:
1. Unification
When students see their classroom teacher and their therapists working together on a common learning target, it sets the tone that you are a team. When my speech and language therapist and occupational therapist come in for our co-teaching block we are all working together, typically on highly engaging and highly motivating activities. When I say "all" this includes the paraprofessionals. I like that not only do the students see the united front from their classroom teacher and their service provider but they also see it from their paraprofessionals/classroom assistants! Working on a core word? Your paraprofessionals will see how the speech pathologist introduces it, how much wait time she/he is giving, how she/he re-directs that student, etc. This also helps provide consistency!
Co-Teaching session focusing on hand-eye coordination
Co-Teaching session focusing on core vocab "go" and "stop" playing musical chairs
2. Observation
One of my favorite things about co-teaching is that I get to see things from a different perspective. Observing how my students interact with my team and their peers, observing how my colleague's handle different situations, and watching my paraprofessionals interact during the lesson. While I am actively engaged in helping with the lesson, I also have the reprieve of being able to take a moment to step back and observe. Observing how my speech therapist handles a student who is deliberately hitting the wrong button on a device helps me understand what she expects of me during classroom instruction when she is not available. Having the ability to watch my occupational therapist correct a pencil grip while using a cute little jingle; that's something I can use that in the classroom as well! It also helps the paraprofessionals see how to implement strategies and modify behaviors. Not only is this something that helps me, it also works the other way around! Do you have a student who is exhibiting challenging behaviors during a lesson? Your related service providers get the unique opportunity to see how you are managing that behavior, and therefore can carry it over in their pull-out sessions!
Co-Teaching session for OT focusing on crawling while focusing on bubble machine
Co-Teaching Session working on core vocab "in"
3. Implementation
I absolutely love when we learn something new during our co-teaching sessions! Observing how my therapist's introduce the topic and what they focus on, helps me plan how I am going to carry over the skill into my classroom on a daily basis. This is simply something that is much harder when you only experience pull-out therapy! You can be told "we are working on the core word 'go'" by your therapist and that's great; but actually seeing how they introduce it, how they get the students motivated, what materials they use and how they modify and assess during their lesson, with your own eyes, is definitely the way to go! I love taking the skills that they are learning and integrating them into our center routines!
Implementation of skills learned through co-teaching during center time, focusing on both SLP and OT goals: "opening"
Co-Teaching session focusing on fine motor skills - pincer grasp
There are so many positive benefits to having a co-teaching block scheduled in your day! These are just a few of mine. So tell me, do you have a co-teaching block with your related service providers? If not, what's holding you back? Drop a comment below!
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